I've been listening to Obama and Romney speechifying about budgets and deficits the last couple of weeks so my arithmetic may be a little grandiose but, at present, there are around 30 million HBD worlds (public and private) between seasons with around 100 gazillion openings in said worlds. One of those worlds (More Cowbell) is mine. We have been in limbo between S23 and S24 since the second Eisenhower administration. My doctors tell me that, even in the unlikely event More Cowbell ever starts up again, my life expectency is not enough to get me through the season. (Which is too bad because my team has a good chance to make the postseason next season. [If next season ever comes.])

My point is that there are too many HBD worlds. This surplus of worlds has caused far too much offseason downtime for many, many HBD players. We pay $24.95 to play HBD; not to wait to play HBD.

In the past WIS has stated they might possibly merge some worlds in order to address this supply/demand problem. Please allow me to suggest that the time for these megers has arrived.

How would mergers work? do you get you entire franchise? how do they populate divisions? or free agent pools? not to mention comishners etc... I think htey should just give out a wack of free seasons again to new and experienced owners...

I wouldn't think merging worlds would be too difficult for the crack WIS programers. For example, if there were four worlds with eight openings each, just merge the four together. There might be some minimal shuffling of leagues and divisions and so on but I doubt that would create much hardship. Most of us would be willing to transfer from the NL South to the NL North if it saved us from having to wait six months to play our next game.

Oh, Geez. Am I to be beaten with the ever present (in WIS) arithmetic stick? Take a close look at HBD. You will see a simulation of reasonably sophisticated design and depth. I think we can be confident the the persons who designed, coded, manage and maintain HBD are up to the arithmetic necessary to merge the thirty or so worlds that are sitting idle, with their 75 or so openings, into, say, 24 or 26 worlds Further, I think we can be confident that WIS can merge worlds in a manner that no one's toes get stepped too hard. Do you want to join me in my effort to persuade WIS to address its HBD supply/demand imbalance, and thereby reduce our HBD downtime, or do you just want to score debating points by telling me what I already know: I am not good at arithmetic.

WIS has and will merge two worlds when the numbers work and both agree to it. Taking 4 worlds and merging them into 3, or whatever, is messy. Not from a coding perspective, necessarily, but from a user perspective. All of a sudden, you go from a world with a ton of history and a core group of users and now you've got the remnents of a bunch of worlds, etc. I believe at least one time they merged 2 worlds, the next offseason that merged world had 8+ openings. Many worlds are private and have their own rules, etc.

This happens every fall and people think the world is going to end, the worlds eventually fill, and in a few months when demand pops back up after football and as baseball starts up, things are fine.

You make good points, AlCheez. But eventually WIS is going to have to address their growing HBD downtime problem. You are incorrect to say that the present stagnation is a routine seasonal (autumn) phenomenum. Not too many years ago HBD enrollments increased during late summer/early autumn pennant fever/world series season; almost as much as it increased during the March/April spring training/opening day time period.

No, HBD has created too many worlds - got themselves in a classic supply/demand squeeze. There are worlds right now that will never fill - dying worlds. They need to be put out of their misery via humane mergers.

Because all worlds fill, it's hard to swallow the "too many worlds" or "supply/demand" arguments. Are there down times? Yep, every year. Do the worlds fill? Yep, every year. Because it's a dynasty game, you can't drop to 120 worlds in the fall and expand to 170 in the spring.

Then those worlds wouldn't be eligible to merge or he'd have to give up a team. Problem solved.

This goes back to an idea I had, and I thought it was horrible but inevitable, of the "traveling team." Owners would carry their 40 man roster from world to world if their current world was struggling to fill. As in "Hey, WifS, move my team from World A to World C. World A has 11 openings and World C has one."

I still think that it is inevitable and I still think it's horrible. Private worlds can obviously deny such a thing but a public world could have powerhouse plunked right in the middle of it.

Yes. Perhaps "merger" is not the best word choice. tecwrg's team free agency and Mike's traveling teams are both concepts that deserve discussion. But of course if WIS doesn't enter into the discussion, what's the point? And that's why I started this thread. To flush WIS out of its hole. It's nice of you surrogates to remind me of what a wrong-headed fool I am, but I doubt I'll quiet down until WIS tells me that - and sends me a $24.95 refund check.

I'm not sure all worlds fill. I think I remember at least one world that was canceled after it sat for months with 10 or 12 openings. Furthermore, my observation is that the downtime for many, many worlds grows continuously longer. The statistics mavens who keep close tabs on this can correct me, but it looks to be that the HBD World Openings page grows ever more stale and static. I have two teams. That's a maximum of $200 a year WIS can wrest out of me. But, as a practical matter, WIS will be lucky to get half that out of me this year because I spend about half my time waiting to play HBD rather than playing HBD. I doubt my experience is uncommom. Call it what you like: merger, team free agency, traveling teams, etc., I think WIS should step up to the plate and show us something. They need to turn that World Openings page over faster.